2 September 23 Ground Search at the Lee Site

Yesterday’s search was, to borrow a phrase from my past, a journey into the suck. The last bit of the southern area of the Lee site is a Devil’s Club thicket that formed a pocket inside the area I had already searched. I started in the morning knowing it was going to be a long, slow and frankly, uncomfortable day alternating between a hands and knees search and a stomach and elbow search. It also rained the day before, so the vegetation was dripping wet, and it intermittently rained throughout the day. Welcome to fall in the Pacific Northwest.

I started searching the thicket by heading roughly northwest from the large alder I had searched around two weeks ago. Due to the thickness of the vegetation, I elected to follow the path of least resistance through it, following rabbit trails through the Devil’s Club.

In order to maximize the ground I could search, while also being efficient with the daylight available, I decided to basically clear a 360 around me, as far as I could reach through the briars, then move forward to the edge of that area and repeat. I fully acknowledge that I was able to cover the least amount of ground in here, but I also know that this was probably the most thorough search of this particular area. I still managed to cover a mile and half within the search box.

This area also produced the most amount of bones that I have found searching yet. I would like to thank Faith, Allison and Maddi for acting as an unofficial “bone phone” and helping me rule out definite animal remains. Here is an example of a bone fragment that I found that is actually from a deer.

Without their trained eyes, this animal part might have gone to LCSO. When I was examining it in the thicket what drew my attention is that the weathering and aging of the bone was remarkably similar to the material I recovered on 17 June at the Grissom site. Once I found it, I trekked out of the woods, drove back out to Highway 20 and texted the unofficial bone phone for ID help. Thank you all very much.

I returned after a short 20 minute break to a fresh rain shower, and an afternoon of being absolutely soaked from the wet and bloodied from the Devil’s Club. As Faith pointed out, at least I am in an area where animals take remains to scavenge on. I found a decent amount of an old elk skeleton back there was well. Due to the size of an elk, it is easy, even for me, to rule those out as potentially human.

I did find a bone fragment that we were unable to rule out as definitively animal, so this was called into the LCSO. It was a fragment, roughly 4x5cm that possibly came from the distal end of a radius, tibia or fibia. I compared the fragment to an exemplar, and it was close enough that I felt comfortable calling it in. Luckily, a LCSO patrol deputy exited Soda Fork Rd in a patrol rig while I was on the phone with dispatch. Instead of the usual 2-3 hour wait, it was only about 20 minutes while he turned around to come back. We had a great conversation about the work I’m doing, and the case itself. Hopefully I’ll hear soon on the State ME’s disposition of the bone.